Feel the fever coming you're shaking and twitching

I had to come in to work this morning. I was tempted to call in sick. I have been in a rather clobbered state since yesterday afternoon. It started after my noon walk. I had only been on one walk the past two weeks. I was getting out of the habit. When I got back, I noticed that my feet and my knees were sore. I also though felt sore in my elbows, shoulders, and neck. My hands got cold. Sometime more toward quitting time, I started getting chilled and a bit shaky, and feeling feverish. By the time I got home, I just wanted to pile into bed and stay warm. I took some Tylenol and that seemed to take the edge off of it, but it didn't go away completely.

I've got some sort of infection. That is apparent. On further reflection, I suppose I was noticing something "off" yesterday morning. Whenever urinating feels like running pot of hot tea through the plumbing, I know that something just isn't right. Add to that, the fact that I had three more-than-healthy bowel movements yesterday. Something is screwed up. I have no idea from whence it came. I'm feeling pretty beat up. This morning, I woke up feeling not a whole lot better, but I didn't want to call in sick to work today because there was a class on patents and trademarks that we engineering people were supposed to attend at eight o'clock this morning. I popped a couple of Tylenol, changed my underwear and freshened up my deodorant and got myself to the car. As chilled and shivery as I felt this morning, a shower was out of the question. I didn't even shave.

The class ran for two hours. I found myself nodding and smiling through parts of it. I remember working with a patent attorney, from when I was involved in the McGuffin project. Tedious work. A good patent attorney will ask one hell of a lot of questions, and the one with whom Robert and I had been working was a most excellent one. So tedious, writing and re-writing claims, detailing processes, expounding on theory, and documenting functionality. The end result is a piece of art though, this even from someone who has misgivings about intellectual property. By the time the class was over, the acetaminophen had kicked in and I started sweating. Usually, that happens to me when a fever breaks. I felt better for a couple of hours, but I declined to test the robustness of my recovery with another noon walk. That was a wise decision. I'm feeling the aches again and feeling a bit muzzy-headed. I'm thinking it is more than likely that I am running a temperature again, but it doesn't feel as hot as it did yesterday.

What is going on here? I'm suspecting some sort of bacteriological infection. I had a teeth cleaning session with my dentist early yesterday morning. Could that have inadvertently turned something loose in my bloodstream? This is the second day. I'm feeling better than I did yesterday, but I still don't feel very productive here at work. It's hard to concentrate and muster my motivation. I'm wanting to go home, and possibly sleep. Two more hours to go. I'm thinking of popping another couple of Tylenol. The last two wore off around eleven this morning.

I'm still missing Laurel. I read an article on the New Yorker Magazine web site yesterday. The author was writing about new things scientists have been learning about the Cascadia Fault. Great Hod, the article makes an Irwin Allen disaster movie look like a pedestrian description of the average fender-bender in a school zone. Horrific. Laurel lives in the inundation zone. She and her family would be in a grim position if the fault gave way today. The problem is that the damned "big one" for that fault is already 72 years late in that fault's 243 year average recurrence interval. I was tempted to send her the link but I didn't want to just drop it on her, given that we haven't been speaking since July 4, and just last Friday, she dumped me off of Facebook...again. Meh. I really have very little respect for that medium.

What happened two weeks ago Saturday was completely loony. There was no sense in that. There is no reason why two people, each with more than half a century of life experience, cannot talk to one another sanely about their differences and the things that trouble them, even if they subsequently decide not to associate with one another anymore. That was just surreal. I cannot accept that things must be left forever in the state in which we last spoke. Ah well, time will tell. I wrote a note to her yesterday with just two lines in it:

Is it possible that you and I could talk, or otherwise communicate in the near future? I really want to do so, but I will understand if you do not.